BBC - Suffolk Don't Miss - The 1953 East Coast Floods

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You are in: Suffolk » Don't Miss » 1953 East Coast Floods

Wednesday 29th January, 2003 - 09:00 GMT
1953 Floods - Key Factors

There were many key factors that played a role in the floods of 1953, according to the Environmental Agency.

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East Coast Floods 1953

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The tide for Saturday/ Sunday was a full moon spring tide of below average level - about 300mm below the average spring tide level at London Bridge. If the tide had been a full spring tide, flooding and loss of life would have been much worse.

The surge preceded the tide by about 1 to 1.5 hrs – the difference reducing as the surge moved south towards Kent. If the surge and tide had coincided, the flooding and loss of life could have been much worse.

There was no national flood warning service and no co-ordination between the police and the emergency services – everything was done very much on a parochial basis – the only two official "flood warnings" were the local flood warning by Scotland Yard (1205 on 31 January) and the ‘phone call from Norfolk and Suffolk River Board (1800 on 31 January) to Essex River Board. Proper flood warning would undoubtedly have reduced loss of life but probably not the damage.

The Dutch flood warning service gave two warnings about flooding on 31 January (1000 and 1645) – apparently no link up available between Dutch and UK authorities, so message not received in UK.

River Boards had emergency plans – many were implemented on the Saturday and Sunday – but they were very local and not linked on a national basis. Emergency plans were totally hampered by complete communication failures in most locations.

Communication, even at the local level, failed completely in most cases - as illustrated by the incorrect and misleading Lincolnshire police statement (2100 on the 31 January) and the Dovercourt Police (2400 on 31 January).

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